BJ 

1.571 


THE 


Kingship  of  Self-Control 

Individual   Problems 
and  Possibilities  .  .  . 


William  George  Jordan 


NEW  YORK       CHICAGO       TORONTO 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 


Republished  from  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  through  the  cour« 
tesy  of  the  Curtis  Publishing  Company. 

B  J 

J L, 


Copyright,  1898  and  1899 

by 

CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

Copyright,  1899 
by 

PLBMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


dept. 


Contents 

CHAP.  PACB 

I.  THE  KINGSHIP  OF  SELF-CONTROL    .  .     7 

II.  THE  CRIMES  OF  THE  TONGUE  .     13 

III.  THE  RED  TAPE  OF  DUTY        .       .  .18 

IV.  THE  SUPREME  CHARITY  OF  THE  WORLD  .    24 
V.  WORRY,  THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  DISEASE  .    30 

VI.  THE  GREATNESS  OF  SIMPLICITY        .  .    36 

VII.  LIVING  LIFE  OVER  AGAIN        .  .42 
VIII.  SYNDICATING  OUR  SORROWS    .  .    48 

IX.  THE  REVELATIONS  OF  RESERVE  POWER  .    54 


The  Kingship  of  Self-Control 

has  two  creators, — his  God  and 
himself.  His  first  creator  furnishes 
him  the  raw  material  of  his  life  and 
the  laws  in  conformity  with  which  he 
can  make  that  life  what  he  will.  His  second 
creator, — himself, — has  marvellous  powers  he 
rarely  realizes.  It  is  what  a  man  makes  of  him- 
self that  counts. 

When  a  man  fails  in  life  he  usually  says,  "I 
am  as  God  made  me."  When  he  succeeds  he 
proudly  proclaims  himself  a  "self-made  man." 
Man  is  placed  into  this  world  not  as  a  finality, — 
but  as  a  possibility.  Man's  greatest  enemy  is, — 
himself.  Man  in  his  weakness  is  the  creature  of 
circumstances;  man  in  his  strength  is  the  creator 
of  circumstances.  Whether  he  be  victim  or 
victor  depends  largely  on  himself. 

Man  is  never  jruly  great  merely  for  what  he 
15,  but  ever  for  what  he  may  become.  Until 
man  be  truly  filled  with  the  knowledge  of  the 
majesty  of  his  possibility,  until  there  come  to 
him  the  glow  of  realization  of  his  privilege  to 
live  the  life  committed  to  him,  as  an  individual 


8          The  Kingship  of  Self-Control 

life  for  which  he  is  individually  responsible,  he  is 
merely  groping  through  the  years. 

To  see  his  life  as  he  might  make  it,  man  must 
go  up  alone  into  the  mountains  of  spiritual 
thought  as  Christ  went  alone  into  the  Garden, 
leaving  the  world  to  .get  strength  to  live  in  the 
world.  He  must  there  breathe  the  fresh,  pure 
air  of  recognition  of  his  divine  importance  as  an 
individual,  and  with  mind  purified  and  tingling 
with  new  strength  he  must  approach  the  prob- 
lems of  his  daily  living. 

Man  needs  less  of  the  "  I  am  a  feeble  worm  of 
the  dust "  idea  in  his  theology,  and  more  of  the 
conception  "I  amja_great  human  soul  with  mar- 
vellous possibilities  "  as  a  vital  element  in  his  daily, 
working  religion.  With  this  broadening,  stimu- 
lating view  of  life,  he  sees  how  he  may  attain  his 
kingship  through  self-control.  And  the  self-con- 
trol  that  is  seen  in  the  most  spectacular  instances 
in  history,  and  in  the  simplest  phases  of  daily 
life  is  precisely  the  same  in  kind  and  in  quality, 
differing  only  in  degree.  This  control  man  can 
attain,  if  he  only  will;  it  is  but  a  matter  of  pay- 
ingjhe  price. 

I  The  power  of  self-control  is  one  of  the  great 
/qualities  that  differentiates  man  from  the  lower 
animals.  He  is  the  only  animal  capable  of  a 
moral  struggle  or  a  moral  conquest. 

Every  step  in  the  progress  of  the  world  has 
been  a  new  "control^  It  has  been  escaping 
from  the  tyranny  of  a  fact,  to  the  understanding 
and  mastery  of  that  fact.  For  ages  man  looked 


The  Kingship  of  Self-Control          9 

in  terror  at  the  lightning  flash;  to-day  he  has 
begun  to  understand  it  as  electricity,  a  force  he 
has  mastered  and  made  his  slave.  JThe  million 
phases  of  electrical  invention  are  buTmanifesta- 
tions  of  our  control  over  a  great  force.  But  the 
greatest  of  all  "controTLis  self-control. 

At  each  moment  of  man's  life  he  is  either  a 
King  or  a  slave.  As  he  surrenders  to  a  wrong 
appetite,  to  any  human  weakness;  as  he  falls 
prostrate  in  hopeless  subjection  to  any  condition, 
to  any  environment,  to  any  failure,  he  is  a  slave. 
As  he  day  by  day  crushes  out  human  weakness, 
masters  opposing  elements  within  him,  and  day 
by  day  re-creates  a  new  self  from  the  sin  and 
folly  of  his  past, — then  he  is  a  King.  He  is  a 
King  ruling  with  wisdom  over  himself.  Alex- 
ander conquered  the  whole  world  except, — Ale*- 
ander.  Emperor  of  the  earth,  he  was  the  servile 
siaviTof  his  own  passions. 

We  look  with  envy  upon  the  possessions  of 
others  and  wish  they  were  our  own.  Sometimes 
we  feel  this  in  a  vague,  dreamy  way  with  no 
thought  of  real  attainment,  as  when  we  wish  we 
had  Queen  Victoria's  crown,  or  Emperor  Wil- 
liam's self-satisfaction.  Sometimes,  however, 
we  grow  bitter,  storm  at  the  wrong  distribution 
of  the  good  things  of  life,  and  then  relapse  into 
a  hopeless  fatalistic  acceptance  of  our  condition. 

We  envy  the  success  of  others,  when  we 
should  emulate  the  process  by  which  that  suc- 
cess came.  We  see  the  splendid  physical  de- 
velopment of  Sandow,  yet  we  forget  that  as  a 


io        The  Kingship  of  Self-Control  ' 

babe  and  child  he  was  so  weak  there  was  little 
hope  that  his  life  might  be  spared. 

We  may  sometimes  envy  the  power  and  spirit- 
ual strength  of  a  Paul,  without  realizing  the  weak 
Saul  of  Tarsus  from  which  he  was  transformed 
through  his  self-control. 

We  shut  our  eyes  to  the  thousands  of  in- 
stances of  the  world's  successes, — mental,  moral, 
physical,    financial    or   spiritual, — wherein    the 
great  final  success  came  from  a  beginning  far 
weaker  and  poorer  than  our  own. 
x\        Any  man  may  attain  self-control  if  he  only 
\  will.    He  must  not  expect  to  gain  it  save  by 
long  continued  payment  of  price,  in  small  pro- 
gressive expenditures  of  energy.    Nature  is  a 
thorough  believer  in  the  installment  plan  in  her 
relations  with  the  individual.    No  man  is  so  poor 
that  he  cannot  begin  to  pay  for  what  he  wants, 
and  every   small,   individual    payment  that  he 
makes,  Nature  stores  and  accumulates  for  him 
/    as  a  reserve  fund  in  his  hour  of  need. 

The  patience  man  expends  in  bearing  the  little 
trials  of  his  daily  life  Nature  stores  for  him  as  a 
wondrous  reserve  in  a  crisis  of  life.  With  Na- 
ture, the  mental,  the  physical  or  the  moral  energy 
he  expends  daily  in  right-doing  is  all  stored  for 
him  and  transmuted  into  strength.  Nature  never 
accepts  a  cash  payment  in  full  for  anything, — 
this  would  be  an  injustice  to  the  poor  and  to  the 
weak. 

It  is  only  the  progressive,  installment  plan  Na- 
ture recognizes.  No  man  can  make  a  habit  in  a 


The  Kingship  of  Self-Control         n 

moment  or  break  it  in  a  moment.  It  is  a  matter 
of  development,  of  growth.  But  at  any  moment 
V  man  may  begin  to  make  or  begin  to  break  any 
habit.  This  view  of  the  growth  of  character 
should  be  a  mighty  stimulus  to  the  man  who 
sincerely  desires  and  determines  to  live  nearer  to 
the  limit  of  his  possibilities. 

Self-control  may  be  developed  in  precisely  the 
same  manner  as  we  tone  up  a  weak  muscle, — 
little  exerdses  day  by  day.  Let  us  each  day 
as  mere  exercises  of  discipline  in  moral  gymnas- 
tics, a  few  acts  that  are  disagreeable  to  us,  the 
doing  of  which  will  help  us  in  instant  action  in 
our  hour  of  need.  The  exercises  may  be  very 
simple, — dropping  for  a  time  an  intensely  inter- 
esting book  at  the  most  thrilling  page  of  the 
story;  jumping  out  of  bed  at  the  first  moment  of  \ 
waking;  walking  home  when  one  is  perfectly 
able  to  do  so,  but  when  the  temptation  is  to  take 
a  car;  talking  to  some  disagreeable  person  and 
trying  to  make  the  conversation  pleasant.  These 
daily  exercises  in  moral  discipline  will  have  a 
wondrous  tonic  effect  on  man's  whole  moral 
nature. 

The  individual  can  attain  self-control  in  great 
things  only  through  self-control  in  little  things. 
He  must  study  himself  to  discover  what  is  the 
weak  point  in  his  armor,  what  is  the  element 
within  him  that  ever  keeps  him  from  his  fullest 
success.  This  is  the  characteristic  upon  which 
he  should  begin  his  exercise  in  self-control.  Is  it 
selfishness,  vanity,  cowardice,  morbidness,  tern- 


12         The  Kingship  of  Self-Control 

per,  laziness,  worry,  mind-vandering,  lack  of 
purpose  ? — whatever  form  human  weakness  as- 
sume in  the  masquerade  of  life  he  must  dis- 
cover. He  must  then  live  each  day  as  if  his 
whole  existence  were  telescoped  down  to  the  j 
single  day  before  him.  With  no  useless  regret 
for  the  past,  no  useless  worry  for  the  future,  he 
should  live  that  day  as  if  it  were  his  only  day, — 
the  only  day  left  for  him  to  assert  all  that  is  best 
in  him,  the  only  day  left  for  him  to  conquer  all 
that  is  worst  in  him.  He  should  master  the 
weak  element  within  him  at  each  slight  manifes- 
tation from  moment  to  moment.  Each  moment 
then  must  be  a  victory  for  it  or  for  him.  Will 
he  be  King,  or  will  he  be  slave?— the  answer 
rests  with  him. 


ft 

The  Crimes  of  the  Tongue 

j]HE  second  most  deadly  instrument  of  de- 
struction is  the  dynamite  gun,—  thejirsj; 
is  the  human  tongue.  The  gun  merely 
killsTxxTies ;  the  tongue  kills  reputations 
and,  ofttimes,  ruins  characters.  Each  gun  works 
alone;  each  loaded  tongue  has  a  hundred  accom- 
plices. The  havoc  of  the  gun  is  visible  at  once. 
The  full  evil  of  the  tongue  lives  through  all  the 
years;  even  the  eye  of  Omniscience  might  grow 
tired  in  tracing  it  to  its  finality. 

The  crimes  of  the  tongue  are  words  of  un- 
kindness,  of  anger,  of  malice,  of  envy,  of  bitter- 
ness, of  harsh  criticism,  gossip,  lying  and  scan- 
dal. Theft  and  murder  are  awful  crimes,  yet  in 
any  single  year  the  aggregate  sorrow,  pain  and 
suffering  they  cause  in  a  nation  is  microscopic 
when  compared  with  the  sorrows  that  come 
from  the  crimes  of  the  tongue.  Place  in  one  of 
the  scale-pans  of  Justice  the  evils  resulting  from 
the  acts  of  criminals,  and  in  the  other  the  grief 
and  tears  and  suffering  resulting  from  the  crimes 
of  respectability,  and  you  will  start  back  in  amaze- 
ment as  you  see  the  scale  you  thought  the  heavier 
shoot  high  in  air. 

13 


14         The  Crimes  of  the  Tongue 

At  the  hands  of  thief  or  murderer  few  of  us 
suffer,  even  indirectly.  But  from  the  careless 
tongue  of  friend,  the  cruel  tongue  of  enemy, 
who  is  free  ?  No  human  being  can  live  a  life 
so  true,  so  fair,  so  pure  as  to  be  beyond  the 
reach  of  malice,  or  immune  from  the  poisonous 
emanations  of  envy.  The  insidious  attacks 
against  one's  reputation,  the  loathsome  innuen- 
does, slurs,  half-lies  by  which  jealous  mediocrity 
seeks  to  ruin  its  superiors,  are  like  those  insect 
parasites  that  kill  the  heart  and  life  of  a  mighty 
oak.  So  cowardly  is  the  method,  so  stealthy  the. 
shooting  of  the  poisoned  thorns,  so  insignificant 
the  separate  acts  in  their  seeming,  that  one  is  no't 
on  guard  against  them.  It  is  easier  to  dodge  an 
elephant  than  a  microbe. 

In  London  they  have  recently  formed  an  Anti- 
Scandal  League.  The  members  promise  to  com- 
bat in  every  way  in  their  power  "the  prevalent 
custom  of  talking  scandal,  the  terrible  and  unend- 
ing consequences  of  which  are  not  generally  es- 
timated." 

Scandal  is  one  of  the  crimes  of  the  tongue,  but 
It  is  only  one.  Every  individual  who  breathes  a 
word  of  scandal  is  an  active  stockholder  in  a  so- 
ciety for  the  spread  of  moral  contagion.  He  is 
instantly  punishe^  by  Nature  by  having  his  men- 
tal eyes  ditnmed  to  sweetness  and  purity,  and  his 
mind  deadened  to  the  sunlight  and  glow  of  char- 
ity. There  is  developed  a  wondrous,  ingenious 
perversion  of  mental  vision  by  which  every  act 
of  others  is  explained  and  interpreted  from  the 


The  Crimes  of  the  Tongue          15 

lowest  possible  motives.  They  become  like  cer- 
tain carrion  flies,  that  pass  lightly  over  acres  of 
rose-gardens,  to  feast  on  a  piece  of  putrid  meat. 
They  have  developed  a  keen  scent  for  the  foul 
matter  upon  which  they  feed. 

There  are  pillows  wet  by  sobs ;  there  are  noble 
hearts  broken  in  the  silence  whence  comes  no 
cry  of  protest;  there  are  gentle,  sensitive  natures 
seared  and  warped;  there  are  old-time  friends 
separated  and  walking  their  lonely  ways  with 
hope  dead  and  memory  but  a  pang;  there  are 
cruel  misunderstandings  that  make  all  life  look 
dark, — these  are  but  a  few  of  the  sorrows  that 
come  from  the  crimes  of  the  tongue. 

A  man  may  lead  a  life  of  honesty  and  purity, 
battling  bravely  for  all  he  holds  dearest,  so  firm 
and  sure  of  the  Tightness  of  his  life  that  he  never 
thinks  for  an  instant  of  the  diabolic  ingenuity 
that  makes  evil  and  evil  report  where  naught  but 
good  really  exists.  A  few  words  lightly  spoken 
by  the  tongue  of  slander,  a  significant  expression 
of  the  eyes,  a  cruel  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  with  ? 
a  pursing  of  the  lips, — and  then,  friendly  hands  r 
grow  cold,  the  accustomed  smile  is  displaced  by 
a  sneer,  and  one  stands  alone  and  aloof  with  a 
dazed  feeling  of  wonder  at  the  vague,  intangible 
something  that  has  caused  it  all. 

For  this  craze  for  scandal,  sensational  news- 
papersjof  to-day  are  largely  responsTBle.  Each 
newspaper  is  not  one  tongue,  but  a  thousand  or 
a  million  tongues,  telling  the  same  foul  story  to 
as  many  pairs  of  listening  ears.  The  vultures  of 


16          The  Crimes  of  the  Tongue 

sensationalism  scent  the  carcass  of  immorality 
afar  off.  From  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth 
they  collect  the  sin,  disgrace  and  folly  of  human- 
ity, and  show  them  bare  to  the  world.  They  do 
not  even  require  facts,  for  morbid  memories  and 
fertile  imaginations  make  even  the  worst  of  the 
world's  happenings  seem  tame  when  compared 
with  their  monstrosities  of  invention.  These 
stories,  and  the  discussions  they  excite,  de- 
velop in  readers  a  cheap,  shrewd  power  of  dis- 
tortion of  the  acts  of  all  around  them. 

If  a  rich  man  give  a  donation  to  some  charity, 
they  say:  "  He  is  doing  it  to  get  his  name  talked 
about, — to  help  his  business."  If  he  give  it 
anonymously,  they  say,  "Oh,  it's  some  million- 
aire who  is  clever  enough  to  know  that  refrain- 
ing  from  giving  his  name  will  pique  curiosity; 
he  will  see  that  the  public  is  informed  later."  If 
he  do  not  give  to  charity,  they  say:  "Oh,  he's 
stingy  with  his  money,  of  course,  like  the  rest  of 
the  millionaires."  To  the  vile  tongue  of  gossip 
and  slander,  Virtue  is  ever  deemed  but  a  mask, 
noble  ideals  but  a  pretense,  generosity  a  bribe. 
/  The  man  who  stands  above  his  fellows  must 
expect  to  be  the  target  for  the  envious  arrows  of 
their  inferiority.  It  is  part  of  the  price  he  must 
pay  for  his  advance.  One  of  the  most  detest- 
able characters  in  all  literature  is  lago.  En- 
vious of  the  promotion  of  Cassio  above  his  head, 
he  hated  Othello.  His  was  one  of  those  low  na- 
tures that  become  absorbed  in  sustaining  his 
dignity,  talking  of  "preserving  his  honor,"— 


The  Crimes  of  the  Tongue           17 

forgetting  it  has  so  long  been  dead  that  even  em- 
balming could  not  preserve  it.  Day  by  day  lago 
dropped  his  poison;  day  by  day  did  subtle  re- 
sentment and  studied  vengeance  distill  the  poison 
of  distrust  and  suspicion  into  more  powerfully 
insidious  doses.  With  a  mind  wonderfully  con- 
centrated by  the  blackness  of  his  purpose,  he 
wove  a  network  of  circumstantial  evidence 
around  the  pure-hearted  Desdemona,  and  then 
murdered  her  vicariously,  by  the  hand  of  Othello. 
Her  very  simplicity,  confidence,  innocence  and 
artlessness  made  Desdemona  the  easier  mark  for 
the  diabolic  tactics  of  lago. 

lago  still  lives  in  the  hearts  of  thousands,  who 
have  all  his  despicable  meanness  without  his 
cleverness.  The  constant  dropping  of  their  lying 
words  of  malice  and  envy  have  in  too  many  in- 
stances at  last  worn  away  the  noble  reputations 
of  their  superiors. 

To  sustain  ourselves  in  our  own  hasty  judg- 
ments we  sometimes  say,  as  we  listen,  and  ac- 
cept without  investigation,  the  words  of  these 
modern  lagoes:  "Well,  where  there  is  so  much 
smoke,  there  must  be  some  fire."  Yes,  but  the 
fire  may  be  only  the  fire  of  malice,  the  incendiary 
firing  of  the  reputation  of  another  by  the  lighted 
torch  of  envy,  thrown  into  the  innocent  facts  of 
a  life  of  superiority. 


m 
The  Red  Tape  of  Duty 


is  the  most  over-lauded  word  in  the 
whole  vocabulary  of  life.  Duty  is  the 
cold,  bare  anatomy  of  righteousness, 
Duty  looks  at  life  as  a  debt  to  be  paid; 
love  sees  life  as  a  debt  to  be  collected.  Duty  is 
ever  paying  assessments;  love  is  constantly 
counting  its  premiums. 

Duty  is  forced,  like  a  pump;  love  is  spontane- 
ous, like  a  fountain.  Duty  is  prescribed  and 
formal;  it  is  part  of  the  red  tape  of  life.  It 
means  running  on  moral  rails.  It  is  good  enough 
as  a  beginning;  it  is  poor  as  a  finality. 

The  boy  who  "stood  on  the  burning  deck," 
and  who  committed  suicide  on  a  technical  point 
of  obedience,  has  been  held  up  to  the  school 
children  of  this  century  as  a  model  of  faithful- 
ness to  duty.  The  boy  was  the  victim  of  a  blind 
adherence  to  the  red  tape  of  duty.  He  was  plac- 
ing the  whole  responsibility  for  his  acts  on  some 
one  outside  himself.  He  was  helplessly  waiting 
for  instruction  in  the  hour  of  emergency  when 
he  should  have  acted  for  himself.  His  act  was 
an  empty  sacrifice.  It  was  a  useless  throwing 
18 


The  Red  Tape  of  Duty  19 

away  of  a  human  life.  It  did  no  good  to  the  fa- 
ther, to  the  boy,  to  the  ship,  or  to  the  nation. 

The  captain  who  goes  down  with  his  sinking 
vessel,  when  he  has  done  everything  in  his 
power  to  save  others  and  when  he  can  save  his 
own  life  without  dishonor,  is  the  victim  of  a 
false  sense  of  duty.  He  is  cruelly  forgetful  of 
the  loved  ones  on  shore  that  he  is  sacrificing. 
His  death  means  a  spectacular  exit  from  life,  the 
cowardly  fear  of  an  investigating  committee,  or 
a  brave  man's  loyal,  yet  misguided,  sense  of 
duty.  A  human  life,  with  its  wondrous  possibil- 
ities, is  too  sacred  an  individual  trust  to  be  thus 
lightly  thrown  into  eternity. 

They  tell  us  of  the  "  sublime  nobleness  "  of  the 
Roman  soldier  at  Pompeii,  whose  skeleton  was 
found  centuries  afterward,  imbedded  in  the  once 
molten  lava  which  swept  down  upon  the  doomed 
city.  He  was  still  standing  at  one  of  the  gates, 
at  his  post  of  duty,  still  grasping  a  sword  in  his 
crumbling  fingers.  His  was  a  morbid  faithful- 
ness to  a  discipline  from  which  a  great  convul- 
sion of  Nature  had  released  him.  An  automaton 
would  have  stood  there  just  as  long,  just  as 
boldly,  just  as  uselessly. 

The  man  who  gives  one  hour  of  his  life  to  lov- 
ing, consecrated  service  to  humanity  is  doing 
higher,  better,  truer  work  in  the  world  than  an 
army  of  Roman  sentinels  paying  useless  tribute 
to  the  red  tape  of  duty.  There  is  in  this  inter- 
pretation of  duty  no  sympathy  with  the  man 
who  deserts  his  post  when  needed;  it  is  but  a 


20  The  Red  Tape  of  Duty 

protest  against  losing  the  essence,  the  realness  of 
true  duty  in  worshipping  the  mere  form. 

Analyze,  If  you  will,  any  of  the  great  historic 
instances  of  loyalty  to  duty,  and  whenever  they 
ring  true  you  will  find  the  presence  of  the  real 
element  that  made  the  act  almost  divine.  It  was 
duty, — plus  love.  It  was  no  mere  sense  of  duty 
that  made  Grace  Darling  risk  her  life  in  the  awful 
storm  of  sixty  years  ago,  when  she  set  out  in  the 
darkness  of  night,  on  a  raging  sea,  to  rescue  the 
survivors  of  the  wreck  of  "The  Forfarshire."  It 
was  the  sense  of  duty,  warmed  and  vivified  by 
a  love  of  humanity,  it  was  heroic  courage  of  a 
heart  filled  with  divine  pity  and  sympathy. 

Duty  is  a  hard,  mechanical  process  for  making 
men  do  things  that  love  would  make  easy.  It  is 
a  poor  understudy  to  love.  It  is  not  a  high 
enough  motive  with  which  to  inspire  humanity. 
Duty  is  the  body  to  which  love  is  the  soul. 
Love,  in  the  divine  alchemy  of  life,  transmutes 
all  duties  Into  privileges,  all  responsibilities  into 
joys. 

The  workman  who  drops  his  tools  at  the  stroke 
of  twelve,  as  suddenly  as  if  he  had  been  struck 
by  lightning  may  be  doing  his  duty,— but  he  is 
doing  nothing  more.  No  man  has  made  a  great 
success  of  his  life  or  a  fit  preparation  for  immor- 
tality oy  doing  merely  his  duty.  He  must  do 
that, — and  more.  If  he  puts  love  into  his  work, 
the  "  more"  will  be  easy. 

The  nurse  may  watch  faithfully  at  the  bedside 
of  a  sick  child  as  a  duty.  But  to  the  mother's 


The  Red  Tape  of  Duty  21 

heart  the  care  of  the  little  one,  in  the  battle 
against  death,  is  never  a  duty;  the  golden  mantle 
of  love  thrown  over  every  act  makes  the  word 
"duty"  have  a  jarring  sound  as  if  it  were  the 
voice  of  desecration. 

When  a  child  turns  out  badly  in  later  years,  the 
parent  may  say,  "Well,  I  always  did  my  duty 
by  him."  Then  it  is  no  wonder  the  boy  turned 
out  wrong.  "Doing  his  duty  by  his  son  "too 
often  implies  merely  food,  lodging,  clothes  and 
education  supplied  by  the  father.  Why,  a  pub- 
lic institution  would  give  that!  What  the  boy 
needed  most  was  deep  draughts  of  love;  he 
needed  to  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  sweet  synv 
pathy,  counsel  and  trust.  The  parent  should 
ever  be  an  unfailing  refuge,  a  constant  resource 
and  inspiration,  not  a  mere  larder,  or  hotel,  or 
wardrobe,  or  school  that  furnishes  these  necessi- 
ties free.  The  empty  boast  of  mere  parental 
duty  is  one  of  the  dangers  of  modern  society. 

Christianity  stands  forth  as  the  one  religion 
based  on  love,  not  duty.  Christianity  sweeps  all 
duties  into  one  word, — love.  Love  is  the  one 
great  duty  enjoined  by  the  Christian  religion. 
What  duty  creeps  to  laboriously,  love  reaches  in 
a  moment  on  the  wings  of  a  dove.  Duty  is  not 
lost,  condemned  or  destroyed  in  Christianity;  it 
is  dignified,  purified  and  exalted  and  all  its  rough 
ways  are  made  smooth,  by  love. 

The  supreme  instance  of  generosity  in  the 
world's  history  is  not  the  giving  of  millions  by 
some  one  of  great  name;  it  is  the  giving  of  a 


22  The  Red  Tape  of  Duty 

mite  by  a  widow  whose  name  does  not  appear. 
Behind  the  widow's  mite  was  no  sense  of  duty; 
it  was  the  full,  free  and  perfect  gift  of  a  heart 
filled  with  love.  In  the  Bible  "  duty "  is  men- 
tioned but  five  times;  "  love,"  hundreds. 

In  the  conquest  of  any  weakness  in  our  mental 
or  moral  make-up;  in  the  attainment  of  any 
strength;  in  our  highest  and  truest  relation  to 
ourselves  and  to  the  world,  let  us  ever  make 
14 love"  our  watchword,  not  mere  "duty." 

If  we  desire  to  live  a  life  of  truth  and  honesty, 
to  make  our  word  as  strong  as  our  bond,  let  us 
not  expect  to  keep  ourselves  along  the  narrow 
line  of  truth  under  the  constant  lash  of  the  whip 
of  duty.  Let  us  begin  to  love  the  truth,  to  fill 
our  mind  and  life  with  the  strong  whitelight  of 
sincerity  and  sterling  honesty.  Let  us  love  the 
truth  so  strongly  that  there  will  develop  within 
us,  without  our  conscious  effort,  an  ever-present 
horror  of  a  lie. 

If  we  desire  to  do  good  in  the  world,  let  us 
begin  to  love  humanity,  to  realize  more  truly  the 
great  dominant  note  that  sounds  in  every  mortal, 
despite  all  the  discords  of  life,  the  great  natural 
bond  of  unity  that  makes  all  men  brothers. 
Then  jealousy,  malice,  envy,  unkind  words  and 
cruel  misjudging  will  be  eclipsed  and  lost  in  the 
sunshine  of  love. 

The  greatest  triumph  of  the  nineteenth  century 
is  not  its  marvellous  progress  in  invention;  its 
strides  in  education;  its  conquests  of  the  dark 
regions  of  the  world;  the  spread  of  a  higher 


The  Red  Tape  of  Duty  23 

mental  tone  throughout  the  earth ;  the  wondrous 
increase  in  material  comfort  and  wealth, — the 
greatest  triumph  of  the  century  is  not  any  nor  aft 
of  these;  it  is  the  sweet  atmosphere  of  Peace 
that  is  covering  the  nations,  it  is  the  growing 
closer  and  closer  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth. 
Peace  is  but  the  breath,  the  perfume,  the  life  of 
love.  Love  is  the  wondrous  angel  of  life  that 
rolls  away  all  the  stones  of  sorrow  and  suffering 
from  the  pathway  of  duty. 


IV 

The  Supreme  Charity  of  the  World 

j]RUE  charity  is  not  typified  by  an  alms- 
box.  The  benevolence  of  a  check-book 
does  not  meet  all  the  wants  of  human- 
ity. Giving  food,  clothing  and  money 
to  the  poor  is  only  the  beginning,  the  kinder- 
garten class,  of  real  charity.  Charity  has  higher, 
purer  forms  of  manifestation.  Charity  is  but  an 
instinctive  reaching  out  for  justice  in  life.  Char- 
ity seeks  to  smooth  down  the  rough  places  of 
living,  to  bridge  the  chasms  of  human  sin  and 
folly,  to  feed  the  heart-hungry,  to  give  strength 
to  the  struggling,  to  be  tender  with  human  weak- 
ness, and  greatest  of  all,  it  means — obeying  the 
Divine  injunction:  "Judge  not." 

The  true  symbol  of  the  greatest  charity  is  the 
scales  of  judgment  held  on  high,  suspended  from 
the  hand  of  Justice.  So  perfectly  are  they  poised 
that  they  are  never  at  rest ;  they  dare  not  stop  for 
a  moment  to  pronounce  final  judgment;  each 
second  adds  its  grain  of  evidence  to  either  side 
of  the  balance.  With  this  ideal  before  him,  man, 
conscious  of  his  own  weakness  and  frailty,  dare 
not  arrogate  to  himself  the  Divine  prerogative  of 
pronouncing  severe  or  final  judgment  on  any  in- 
24 


Supreme  Charity  of  the  World       25 

dividual.  He  will  seek  to  train  mind  and  heart 
to  greater  keenness,  purity,  and  delicacy  in 
watching  the  trembling  movement  of  the  bal- 
ance in  which  he  weighs  the  characters  and  repu- 
tations of  those  around  him. 

It  is  a  great  pity  in  life  that  all  the  greatest 
words  are  most  degraded.  We  hear  people  say : 
"  I  do  so  love  to  study  character,  in  the  cars  and 
on  the  street."  They  are  not  studying  character; 
they  are  merely  observing  characteristics.  The 
study  of  character  is  not  a  puzzle  that  a  man  may 
work  out  over  night.  Character  is  most  subtle, 
elusive,  changing  and  contradictory — a  strange 
mingling  of  habits,  hopes,  tendencies,  ideals,  mo- 
tives, weaknesses,  traditions  and  memories — 
manifest  in  a  thousand  different  phases. 

There  is  but  one  quality  necessary  for  the  per- 
fect understanding  of  character,  one  quality  that, 
if  man  have  it,  he  may  dare  to  judge — that  is, 
omniscience.  Most  people  study  character  as  a 
proofreader  pores  over  a  great  poem:  his  ears 
are  dulled  to  the  majesty  and  music  of  the  lines, 
his  eyes  are  darkened  to  the  magic  imagination 
of  the  genius  of  the  author;  that  proofreader  is 
busy  watching  for  an  inverted  comma,  a  mis- 
spacing,  or  a  wrong-font  letter.  He  has  an  eye 
trained  for  the  imperfections,  the  weaknesses. 
Men  who  pride  themselves  on  being  shrewd  in 
discovering  the  weak  points,  the  vanity,  dishon- 
esty, immorality,  intrigue  and  pettiness  of  others 
think  they  understand  character.  They  know 
only  part  of  character — they  know  only  the  depths 


26       Supreme  Charity  of  the  World 

to  which  some  men  may  sink;  they  know  not 
the  heights  to  which  some  men  may  rise.  An 
optimist  is  a  man  who  has  succeeded  in  associat- 
ing with  humanity  for  some  time  without  be- 
coming a  cynic. 

We  never  see  the  target  a  man  aims  at  in  life; 
we  see  only  the  target  he  hits.  We  judge  from 
results,  and  we  imagine  an  infinity  of  motives 
that  we  say  must  have  been  in  his  mind.  No 
man  since  the  creation  has  been  able  to  live  a  life 
so  pure  and  noble  as  to  exempt  him  from  the 
misjudgment  of  those  around  him.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  get  aught  but  a  distorted  image  from  a 
convex  or  a  concave  mirror. 

If  misfortune  comes  to  some  one,  people  are 
prone  to  say,  "It  is  a  judgment  upon  him." 
How  do  they  know  ?  Have  they  been  eaves- 
dropping at  the  door  of  Paradise  ?  When  sorrow 
and  failure  come  to  us,  we  regard  them  as  mis- 
directed packages  that  should  be  delivered  else- 
where. We  do  too  much  watching  of  our  neigh- 
bor's garden,  too  little  weeding  in  our  own. 

Bottles  have  been  picked  up  at  sea  thousands 
of  miles  from  the  point  where  they  have  been 
cast  into  the  waters.  They  have  been  the  sport 
of  wind  and  weather;  carried  along  by  ocean 
currents,  they  have  reached  a  destination  un- 
dreamed of.  Our  flippant,  careless  words  of 
judgment  of  the  character  of  some  one,  words 
lightly  and  perhaps  innocently  spoken,  may  be 
carried  by  unknown  currents  and  bring  sorrow, 
misery  and  shame  to  the  innocent.  A  cruel 


Supreme  Charity  of  the  World       27 

smile,  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  or  a  cleverly  elo- 
quent silence  may  ruin  in  a  moment  the  reputa- 
tion a  man  or  woman  has  been  building  for 
years.  It  is  as  a  single  motion  of  the  hand  may 
destroy  the  delicate  geometry  of  a  spider's  web, 
spun  from  its  own  body  and  life,  though  all  the 
united  efforts  of  the  universe  could  not  put  it 
back  as  it  was. 

We  do  not  need  to  judge  nearly  so  much  as 
•We  think  we  do.  This  is  the  age  of  snap  judg- 
ments. The  habit  is  greatly  intensified  by  the 
sensational  press.  Twenty-four  hours  after  a 
great  murder  there  is  difficulty  in  getting  enough 
/men  who  have  not  already  formulated  a  judg- 
ment, to  try  the  case.  These  men,  in  most  in- 
stances, have  read  and  accepted  the  garbled, 
highly-colored  newspaper  account;  they  have  to 
their  own  satisfaction  discovered  the  murderer, 
practically  tried  him  and — sentenced  him.  We 
hear  readers  state  their  decisions  with  all  the  force 
and  absoluteness  of  one  who  has  had  the  whole 
Book  of  Life  made  luminant  and  spread  out  be- 
fore him.  If  there  be  one  place  in  life  where  the 
attitude  of  the  agnostic  is  beautiful,  it  is  in  this 
matter  of  judging  others.  It  is  the  courage  to 
say:  "I  don't  know.  I  am  waiting  further  evi- 
dence. I  must  hear  both  sides  of  the  question. 
Till  then  I  suspend  all  judgment."  It  is  this  sus- 
pendedjudgment  thatjs, 
charity. 

It  is  strange  that  in  life  we  recognize  the  right 
of  every  criminal  to  have  a  fair,  open  trial,  yet 


28       Supreme  Charity  of  the  World 

we  condemn  unheard  the  dear  friends  around  us 
on  mere  circumstantial  evidence.  We  rely  on 
the  mere  evidence  of  our  senses,  trust  it  implic- 
itly, and  permit  it  to  sweep  away  like  a  mighty 
tide  the  faith  that  has  been  ours  for  years.  We 
see  all  life  grow  dark,  hope  sink  before  our  eyes, 
and  the  golden  treasures  of  memory  turn  to  cruel 
thoughts  of  loss  to  sting  us  with  maddening  pain. 
Our  hasty  judgment,  that  a  few  moments  of  ex- 
planation would  remove,  has  estranged  the  friend 
of  our  life.  If  we  be  thus  unjust  to  those  we 
hold  dear,  what  must  be  the  cruel  injustice  of  our 
judgment  of  others  ? 

A^  We  know  nothing  of  the  trials,  sorrows  and 
\  temptations  of  those  around  us,  of  pillows  wet 
with  sobs,  of  the  life-tragedy  that  may  be  hidden 
behind  a  smile,  of  the  secret  cares,  struggles  and 
worries  that  shorten  life  and  leave  their  mark  in 
hair  prematurely  whitened,  and  in  character 
changed  and  almost  re-created  in  a  few  days. 

We  say  sometimes  to  one  who  seems  calm 
and  smiling:  "You  ought  to  be  supremely 
happy;  you  have  everything  that  heart  could 
wish."  It  may  be  that  at  that  very  moment  the 
person  is  passing  alone  through  some  agony  of 
sorrow,  where  the  teeth  seem  almost  to  bite  into 
the  lips  in  the  attempt  to  keep  feelings  under 
control,  when  life  seems  a  living  death  from 
which  there  is  no  relief.  Then  these  light,  flip- 
pant phrases  jar  upon  us,  and  we  seem  as  isolated 
and  separated  from  the  rest  of  humanity  as  if  we 
were  living  on  another  planet 


Supreme  Charity  of  the  World       29 

Let  us  not  dare  to  add  to  the  burden  of  another 
the  pain  of  our  judgment.  If  we  would  guard 
our  lips  from  expressing,  wejnust  control  QUE- 
mind,  we  must  stop  this  continual  sitting  in 
judgment  on  the  acts  of  others,  even  in  private. 
Let  us  by  daily  exercises  in  self-control  learn  to 
turn  off  the  process  ofjudging—  as  we  would 
'ps:  LetTus  eliminate  pride,  passion, 


personal  feeling,  prejudice  and  pettiness  from 
our  mind,  and  higher,  purer  emotions  will  rush 
in,  as  air  seeks  to  fill  a  vacuum.  Charity  is  not  a 
formula;  it  is  an  atmosphere.  Let  us  cultivate 
charity  in  judging;  let  us  seek  to  draw  out  latent 
good  in  others  rather  than  to  discover  hidden 
evil.  It  requires  the  eye  of  charity  to  see  the  un- 
developed butterfly  in  the  caterpillar.  Let  us,  if 
we  would  rise  to  the  full  glory  of  our  privilege, 
to  the  dignity  of  true  living,  make  for  our  watch- 
word the  injunction  of  the  supreme  charity  of  the 
world—  "Judge  not." 


Worry,the  Great  American  Disease 

RRY  is  the  most  popular  form  of 
suicide.  Worry  impairs  appetite, 
disturbs  sleep,  makes  respiration  ir- 
regular, spoils  digestion,  irritates  dis- 
position,  warps  character,  weakens  mind,  stimu- 
lates disease,  and  saps  bodily  health.  It  is  th< 
real  cause  of  death  in  thousands  of  instances 
where  some  other  disease  is  named  in  the  death 
certificate.  Worry  is  mental  poison;  work  is 
mental  food. 

When  a  child's  absorption  in  his  studies  keepi 
him  from  sleeping,  or  when  he  tosses  and  turnj 
from  side  to  side,  muttering  the  multiplication 
table  or  spelling  words  aloud,  when  sleep  does 
come,  then  that  child  shows  he  is  worrying.  It 
is  one  of  Nature's  danger-signals  raised  to  warn 
parents,  and  in  mercy  the  parent  should  take  *; 
firm  stand.  The  burden  of  that  child's  daily 
tasks  should  be  lightened,  the  tension  of  its  con- 
centration should  be  lessened,  the  hours  of  its 
slavery  to  education  should  be  cut  short. 

When  a  man  or  woman  works  over  in  dreams 
the  problems  of  the  day,  when  the  sleeping  hours 
are  spent  in  turning  the  kaleidoscope  of  the  day's 

30 


Worry,  the  Great  American  Disease   31 

activities,  then  there  is  either  overwork  or  worry, 
and  most  likely  it  is  the  worry  that  comes  from 
overwork.  The  Creator  never  intended  a  healthy 
mind  to  dream  of  the  day's  duties.  Either  dream- 
less sleep  or  dreams  of  the  past  should  be  the 
order  of  the  night. 

When  the  spectre  of  one  grief,  one  fear,  one 
sorrow,  obtrudes  itself  between  the  eye  and  the 
printed  page;  when  the  inner  voice  of  this  irri- 
tating memory,  or  fear,  looms  up  so  loud  as  to 
deaden  outside  voices,  there  is  danger  to  the 
individual.  When  all  day,  every  hour,  every 
moment,  there  is  the  dull,  insistent,  numb  pain 
of  something  that  makes  itself  felt  through, 
above  and  below  all  our  other  thinking,  we  must 
know  that  we  are  worrying.  Then  there  is  but 
one  thing  to  do, — we  must  stop  that  worry;  we 
must  kill  it. 

The  wise  men  of  this  wondrous  century  have 
made  great  discoveries  in  their  interviews  with 
Nature.  They  have  discovered  that  everything 
that  has  been  created  has  its  uses.  They  will 
teach  you  not  to  assassinate  flies  with  paper 
coated  with  sweetened  glue,  for  "the  flies  are 
Nature's  scavengers/'  They  will  tell  you  just 
what  are  the  special  duties  and  responsibilities  of 
each  of  the  microscopic  microbes  with  telescopic 
names.  In  their  wildest  moods  of  scientific  e;v 
thusiasm  they  may  venture  to  persuade  you  intt 
believing  that  even  the  mosquito  serves  some  real 
purpose  in  Nature,  but  no  man  that  has  ever  lived 
can  truthfully  say  a  good  word  about  worry. 


32  Worry,  the  Great  American  Disease 

Worry  is  forethought  gone  to  seed.  Worry  is 
discounting  possible  future  sorrows  so  that  the 
individual  may  have  present  misery.  Worry  is 
the  father  of  insomnia.  Worry  is  the  traitor  in 
our  camp  that  dampens  our  powder,  weakens 
our  aim.  Under  the  guise  of  helping  us  to  bear 
the  present,  and  to  be  ready  for  the  future,  worry 
multiplies  enemies  within  our  own  mind  to  sap 
our  strength. 

Worry  is  the  dominance  of  the  mind  by  a  single 
vague,  restless,  unsatisfied,  fearing  and  fearful 
idea.  The  mental  energy  and  force  that  should 
be  concentrated  on  the  successive  duties  of  the 
day  is  constantly  and  surreptitiously  abstracted 
and  absorbed  by  this  one  fixed  idea.  The  full, 
rich  strength  of  the  unconscious  working  of  th» 
mind,  that  which  produces  our  best  success,  thai 
represents  our  finest  activity,  is  tapped,  led  awa) 
and  wasted  on  worry. 

Worry  must  not  be  confused  with  anxiety 
though  both  words  agree  in  meaning,  originally, 
a  "choking,"  or  a  "strangling/'  referring,  ot 
course,  to  the  throttling  effect  upon  individual! 
activity.  Anxiety  faces  large  issues  of  life  se- 
riously, calmly,  with  dignity.  Anxiety  always 
suggests  hopeful  possibility;  it  is  active  in  being 
ready,  and  devising  measures  to  meet  the  out- 
come. Worry  is  not  one  large  individual  sorrow; 
it  is  a  colony  of  petty,  vague,  insignificant,  rest- 
less imps  of  fear,  that  become  important  only 
from  their  combination,  their  constancy,  theii 
iteration. 


Worry,  the  Great  American  Disease   33 

When  Death  comes,  when  the  one  we  love 
has  passed  from  us,  and  the  silence  and  the  lone- 
ness  and  the  emptiness  of  all  things  make  us  stare 
dry-eyed  into  the  future,  we  give  ourselves  up, 
for  a  time,  to  the  agony  of  isolation.  This  is  not 
a  petty  worry  we  must  kill  ere  it  kills  us.  This  is 
the  awful  majesty  of  sorrow  that  mercifully  be- 
numbs us,  though  it  may  later  become,  in  the 
mysterious  working  of  omnipotence,  a  rebaptism 
and  a  regeneration.  It  is  the  worry  habit,  the 
constant  magnifying  of  petty  sorrows  to  eclipse 
the  sun  of  happiness,  against  which  I  here  make 
protest. 

To  cure  worrv.Jhe  i 


the  case  heroic-treat- 
ment.  He  must  realize,  with  every  fibre  of  his 
b'eingrthe  utter,  absolute  uselessness  of  worry. 
He  must  not  think  this  is  commonplace,  —  a  bit 
of  mere  theory  ;  it  is  a  reality  that  he  must  trans- 
late for  himself  from  mere  words  to  a  real,  living 
fact.  He  must  fully  understand  that  if  it  were 
possible  for  him  to  spend  a  whole  series  of  eter- 
nities in  worry,  it  would  not  change  the  fact  one 
jot  or  tittle.  It  is  a  timgforaction,  not  worry, 
because  worry  paralyzeiTthougTiFancl  action,  too. 
If  you  set  down  a  column  of  figures  in  addition, 
no  amount  of  worry  can  change  the  sum  total  of 
those  figures.  That  result  is  wrapped  up  in  the 
inevitability  of  mathematics.  The  result  can  be 
made  different  only  by  changing  the  figures  as 
they  are  set  down,  one  by  one,  in  that  column. 
The  one  time  that  a  man  cannot  afford  to  worry 


34   Worry,  the  Great  American  Disease 

is  when  he  does  worry.  Then  he  is  facing,  or 
imagines  he  is,  a  critical  turn  in  affairs.  This  is 
the  time  when  he  needs  one  hundred  per  cent. 
of  his  mental  energy  to  make  his  plans  quickly, 
to  see  what  is  his  wisest  decision,  to  keep  a  clear 
eye  on  the  sky  and  on  his  course,  and  a  firm 
hand  on  the  helm  until  he  has  weathered  the 
storm  in  safety. 

There  are  two  reasons  why  man  should  not 
worry,  either  one  of  which  must  operate  in  every 
instance.  First^because  he  cannot  prevent  the 
results  he  fears.  Second^  because  he  can  prevent 
them.  If  he  be  powerless  to  avert  the  blow,  he 
needs  perfect  mental  concentration  to  meet  it 
bravely,  to  lighten  its  force,  to  get  what  salvage 
he  can  from  the  wreck,  to  sustain  his  strength  at 
this  time  when  he  must  plan  a  new  future.  If 
he  can  prevent  the  evil  he  fears,  then  he  has  no 
need  to  worry,  for  he  would  by  so  doing  be  dis« 
sipating  energy  in  his  very  hour  of  need. 
•;  If  man  do,  day  by  day,  ever  the  best  he  can 
by  the  light  he  has,  he  has  no  need  to  fear,  ncr 
need  to  regret,  no  need  to  worry.  No  agony  of 
worry  would  do  aught  to  help  him.  Neither 
mortal  nor  angel  can  do  more  than  his  best.  If 
we  look  back  upon  our  past  life  we  will  see  how, 
in  the  marvellous  working  of  events,  the  cities  of 
our  greatest  happiness  and  of  our  fullest  success' 
have  been  built  along  the  rivers  of  our  deepest 
sorrows,  our  most  abject  failures.  We  then  real* 
ize  that  our  present  happiness  or  success  would 
have  been  impossible  had  it  not  been  for  some 


Worry,  the  Great  American  Disease   35 

terrible  affliction  or  loss  in  the  past,— some  won- 
drous potent  force  in  the  evolution  of  our  char- 
acter or  our  fortune.  This  should  be  a  wondrous 
stimulus  to  us  in  bearing  the  trials  and  sorrows 
of  life. 

To  cure  one's  self  of  worry  is  not  an  easy  taskl 
it  is  not  to  be  removed  in  two  or  three  applica- ] 
tions  of  the  quack  medicine  of  any  cheap  phi- 
losophy, but  it  requires  only  clear,  simple,  com- 
mon-sense applied  to  the  business  of  life.  Man 
has  no  right  to  waste  his  own  energies,  to 
weaken  his  own  powers  and  influence,  for  he 
has  inalienable  duties  to  himself,  to  his  family,  to 
society,  and  to  the  wortd. 


VI 

The  Greatness  of  Simplicity 

[IMPLICITY  is  the  elimination  of  the  non- 
essential  in  all  things.  It  reduces  life 
to  its  minimum  of  real  needs;  raises  it 
to  its  maximum  of  powers.  Simplicity 
means  the  survival, — not  of  the  fittest,  but  ol 
the  best.  In  morals  it  kills  the  weeds  of  vice 
and  weakness  so  that  the  flowers  of  virtue  antf 
strength  may  have  room  to  grow.  Simplicity 
cuts  off  waste  and  intensifies  concentration.  It, 
converts  flickering  torches  into  searchlights. 

All  great  truths  are  simple.  The  essence  at 
Christianity  could  be  given  in  a  few  words;  & 
lifetime  would  be  but  continued  seeking  to  make 
those  words  real  and  living  in  thoughts  and  acts. 
The  true  Christian's  individual  belief  is  always 
simpler  than  his  church  creed,  and  upon  these 
vital,  foundation  elements  he  builds  his  life. 
Higher  criticism  never  rises  to  the  heights  of 
his  simplicity.  He  does  not  care  whether  the 
whale  swallowed  Jonah  or  Jonah  swallowed  the 
whale.  Hair-splitting  interpretation  of  words 
and  phrases  is  an  intellectual  dissipation  he  has 
no  time  for.  He  cares  naught  for  the  anatomy 
of  religion;  he  has  its  soul.  His  simple  faith  he 
36 


The  Greatness  of  Simplicity         37 

Wves, — in  thought  and  word  and  act,  day  by  day. 
Like  the  lark  he  lives  nearest  the  ground;  like 
the  lark  he  soars  highest  toward  heaven. 

The  minister  whose  sermons  are  made  up 
merely  of  flowers  of  rhetoric,  sprigs  of  quota- 
tion, sweet  fancy,  and  perfumed  commonplaces, 
is — consciously  or  unconsciously  posing  in  the 
pulpit.  His  literary  charlotte-russes,  sweet  froth 
on  a  spongy,  pulpy  base,  never  helped  a  human 
soul, — they  give  neither  strength  nor  inspiration. 
If  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  preacher  were  really 
thrilled  with  the  greatness  and  simplicity  of  re- 
ligion, he  would,  week  by  week,  apply  the  ring- 
Ing  truths  of  his  faith  to  the  vital  problems  of 
daily  living.  The  test  of  a  strong,  simple  sermon 
Is  results, — not  the  Sunday  praise  of  his  auditors, 
but  their  bettered  lives  during  the  week.  People 
who  pray  on  their  knees  on  Sunday  and  prey  on 
their  neighbors  on  Monday,  need  simplicity  in 
their  faith. 

No  character  can  be  simple  unless  it  is  based 
on  truth, — unless  it  is  lived  in  harmony  with 
one's  own  conscience  and  ideals.  Simplicity  is 
the  pure  white  light  of  a  life  lived  from  within. 
It  is  destroyed  by  any  attempt  to  live  in  harmony 
with  public  opinion.  Public  opinion  is  a  con- 
science owned  by  a  syndicate, — where  the  in- 
dividual is  merely  a  stockholder.  But  the  in- 
dividual has  a  conscience  of  which  he  is  sole  pro- 
prietor. Adjusting  his  life  to  his  own  ideals  is 
the  royal  road  to  simplicity.  Affectation  is  the 
confession  of  inferiority;  it  is  an  unnecessary 


38         The  Greatness  of  Simplicity 

proclamation  that  one  is  not  living  the  life  he 
pretends  to  live. 

Simplicity  is  restful  contempt  for  the  non-es- 
sentials of  life.  It  is  restless  hunger  for  the  non- 
essentials  that  is  the  secret  of  most  of  the  discon- 
tent of  the  world.  It  is  constant  striving  to  out- 
shine others  that  kills  simplicity  and  happiness. 

Nature,  in  all  her  revelations,  seeks  to  teach 
man  the  greatness  of  simplicity.  Health  is  but 
the  living  of  a  physical  life  in  harmony  with  a 
few  simple,  clearly  defined  laws.  Simple  food, 
simple  exercise,  simple  precautions  will  work 
wonders.  But  man  grows  tired  of  the  simple 
things,  he  yields  to  subtle  temptations  in  eating 
and  drinking,  listens  to  his  palate  instead  of  to 
Nature, — and  he  suffers.  He  is  then  led  into  in- 
timate acquaintance  with  dyspepsia,  and  he  sits 
like  a  child  at  his  own  bounteous  table,  forced  to 
limit  his  eating  to  simple  food  that  he  scorned. 

There  is  a  tonic  strength  in  the  hour  of  sorrow 
and  affliction,  in  escaping  from  the  world  and 
society  and  getting  back  to  the  simple  duties  and 
interests  we  have  slighted  and  forgotten.  Our 
world  grows  smaller,  but  it  grows  dearer  and 
greater.  Simple  things  have  a  new  charm  for 
us,  and  we  suddenly  realize  that  we  have  been 
renouncing  all  that  is  greatest  and  best,  in  our 
pursuit  of  some  phantom. 

Simplicity  is  the  characteristic  that  is  most  dif- 
ficult to  simulate.  The  signature  that  is  most 
difficult  to  imitate  is  the  one  that  is  most  simple, 
most  individual  and  most  free  from  flourishes. 


The  Greatness  of  Simplicity         39 

bank  note  that  is  the  most  difficult  to  coun- 
terfeit successfully  is  the  one  that  contains  the 
fewest  lines  and  has  the  least  intricate  detail.  So 
simple  is  it  that  any  departure  from  the  normal 
is  instantly  apparent.  So  is  it  also  in  mind  and 
in  morals. 

Simplicity  in  act  is  the  outward  expression  of 
simplicity  in  thought.  Men  who  carry  on  their 
shoulders  the  fate  of  a  nation  are  quiet,  modest, 
unassuming.  They  are  often  made  gentle,  calm 
and  simple  by  the  discipline  of  their  responsibil- 
ity. They  have  no  room  in  their  minds  for  the 
pettiness  of  personal  vanity.  It  is  ever  the  drum- 
major  who  grows  pompous  when  he  thinks  that 
the  whole  world  is  watching  him  as  he  marches 
at  the  head  of  the  procession.  The  great  general, 
bowed  with  the  honors  of  many  campaigns,  is 
simple  and  unaffected  as  a  child. 

The  college  graduate  assumes  the  airs  of  one 
to  whom  is  committed  the  wisdom  of  the  ages, 
while  the  great  man  of  science,  the  Columbus  of 
some  great  continent  of  investigation,  is  simple 
and  humble. 

The  longest  Latin  derivatives  seem  necessary 
to  express  the  thoughts  of  young  writers.  The 
world's  great  masters  in  literature  can  move  man- 
kind to  tears,  give  light  and  life  to  thousands  in 
darkness  and  doubt,  or  scourge  a  nation  for  its 
folly, — by  words  so  simple  as  to  be  common- 
place. But  transfigured  by  the  divinity  of  genius, 
there  seems  almost  a  miracle  in  words. 

Life  grows   wondrously  beautiful  when  we 


40         The  Greatness  of  Simplicity 

look  at  it  as  simple,  when  we  can  brush  aside 
the  trivial  cares  and  sorrows  and  worries  and  fail- 
ures and  say:  "  They  don't  count.  They  are  not 
the  real  things  of  life;  they  are  but  interruptions. 
There  is  something  within  me,  my  individuality, 
that  makes  all  these  gnats  of  trouble  seem  too 
trifling  for  me  to  permit  them  to  have  any  domin- 
ion over  me."  Simplicity  is  a  mental  soil  where 
artifice,  lying,  deceit,  treachery  and  selfish,  low 
ambition, — cannot  grow. 

The  man  whose  character  is  simple  looks  truth 
and  honesty  so  straight  in  the  face  that  he  has  no 
consciousness  of  intrigue  and  corruption  around 
him.  He  is  deaf  to  the  hints  and  whispers  of 
wrong  that  a  suspicious  nature  would  suspect 
even  before  they  existed.  He  scorns  to  meet  in- 
trigue with  intrigue,  to  hold  power  by  bribery, 
to  pay  weak  tribute  to  an  inferior  that  has  a  tem- 
porary inning.  To  true  simplicity,  to  perceive  a 
truth  is  to  begin  to  live  it,  to  see  a  duty  is  to  be- 
gin to  do  it.  Nothing  great  can  ever  enter  into 
the  consciousness  of  a  man  of  simplicity  and  re- 
main but  a  theory.  Simplicity  in  a  character  is 
like  the  needle  of  a  compass, — it  knows  only  one 
point,  its  North,  its  ideal. 

Let  us  seek  to  cultivate  this  simplicity  in  all 
things  in  our  life.  The  first  step  toward  simplic- 
ity is  "simplifying."  The  beginning  of  mental 
or  moral  progress  or  reform  is  always, — renun- 
ciation or  sacrifice.  It  is  rejection,  surrender  or 
destruction  of  separate  phrases  of  habit  or  life 
that  have  kept  us  from  higher  things.  Reform 


The  Greatness  of  Simplicity         41 

your  diet  and  you  simplify  it;  make  your  speech 
truer  and  higher  and  you  simplify  it;  reform  your 
morals  and  you  begin  to  cut  off  your  immorals. 
The  secret  of  all  true  greatness  is  simplicity. 
Make  simplicity  the  keynote  of  your  life  and  you 
will  be  great,  no  matter  though  your  life  be  hum- 
ble and  your  influence  seem  but  little.  Simple 
habits,  simple  manners,  simple  needs,  simple 
words,  simple  faiths, — all  are  the  pure  manifes- 
tations of  a  mind  and  heart  of  simplicity. 

Simplicity  is  never  to  be  associated  with  weak- 
ness and  ignorance.  It  means  reducing  tons  of 
ore  to  nuggets  of  gold.  It  means  the  light  of  full- 
est knowledge;  it  means  that  the  individual  has 
seen  the  folly  and  the  nothingness  of  those  things 
that  make  up  the  sum  of  the  life  of  others.  He 
has  lived  down  what  others  are  blindly  seeking  to 
live  up  to.  Simplicity  is  the  sun  of  a  self-cen- 
tred and  pure  life, — the  secret  of  any  specific 
greatness  in  the  life  of  the  individual. 


VII 
Living  Life  Over  Again 


a  terrific  storm  a  few  years  ago  a 
ship  was  driven  far  out  of  her  course, 
and,  helpless  and  disabled,  was  carried 
into  a  strange  bay.  The  water  supply 
gave  out,  and  the  crew  suffered  agony  of  thirst, 
yet  dared  not  drink  of  the  salt  water  in  which 
their  vessel  floated.  In  their  last  extremity  they 
lowered  a  bucket  over  the  ship's  side,  and  in  des- 
peration quaffed  the  beverage  they  thought  was 
sea-water.  But  to  their  joy  and  amazement  the 
water  was  fresh,  cool  and  life-giving.  They 
were  in  a  fresh-water  arm  of  the  sea,  and  they 
did  not  know  it.  They  had  simply  to  reach 
down  and  accept  the  new  life  and  strength  for 
which  they  prayed. 

Man,  to-day,  heart-weary  with  the  sorrow,  sin 
and  failure  of  his  past  life,  feels  that  he  could 
live  a  better  life  if  he  could  only  have  another 
chance,  if  he  could  only  live  life  over  again,  if  he 
could  only  start  afresh  with  his  present  knowl- 
edge and  experience.  He  looks  back  with  regret- 
ful memory  to  the  golden  days  of  youth  and  sadly 
mourns  his  wasted  chances.  He  then  turns  hope- 
fully to  the  thought  of  a  life  to  come.  But,  help- 
42 


Living  Life  Over  Again  43 

less,  he  stands  between  the  two  ends  of  life,  yet 
thirsting  for  the  chance  to  live  a  new  life,  accord- 
ing to  his  bettered  condition  for  living  it.  In  his 
blindness  and  unknowing,  he  does  not  realize, 
like  the  storm-driven  sailors,  that  the  new  life  is 
all  around  him ;  he  has  but  to  reach  out  and  take 
St.  Every  day  is  a  new  life,  every  sunrise  but  a 
-new  birth  for  himself  and  the  world,  every 
f-norning  the  beginning  of  a  new  existence  for 
'him,  a  new,  great  chance  to  put  to  new  and 
'higher  uses  the  results  of  his  past  living. 

The  man  who  looks  back  upon  his  past  life 
ind  says,  "I  have  nothing  to  regret/' has  lived 
'n  vain.  The  life  without  regret  is  the  life  with- 
out gain.  Regret  is  but  the  light  of  fuller  wis- 
dom, from  our  past,  illumining  our  future.  It 
means  that  we  are  wiser  to-day  than  we  were 
yesterday.  This  new  wisdom  means  new  re- 
sponsibility, new  privileges ;  it  is  a  new  chance 
for  a  better  life.  But  if  regret  remain  merely 
"regret,"  it  is  useless;  it  must  become  the  reve- 
lation of  new  possibilities,  and  the  inspiration 
and  source  of  strength  to  realize  them.  Even 
omnipotence  could  not  change  the  past,  but  each 
man,  to  a  degree  far  beyond  his  knowing,  holds 
his  future  in  his  own  hands. 

If  man  were  sincere  in  his  longing  to  live  life 
over  he  would  get  more  help  from  his  failures. 
If  he  realize  his  wasted  golden  hours  of  op- 
portunity, let  him  not  waste  other  hours  in  use- 
less regret,  but  seek  to  forget  his  folly  and  to 
keep  before  him  only  the  lessons  of  it  His  past 


44  Living  Life  Over  Again 

extravagance  of  time  should  lead  him  to  minify 
his  loss  by  marvellous  economy  of  present  mo- 
ments. If  his  whole  life  be  darkened  by  the 
memory  of  a  cruel  wrong  he  has  done  another, 
if  direct  amends  be  impossible  to  the  injured  one, 
passed  from  life,  let  him  make  the  world  the 
legatee  to  receive  his  expressions  of  restitution. 
Let  his  regret  and  sorrow  be  manifest  in  words 
of  kindness  and  sympathy,  and  acts  of  sweet- 
ness and  love  given  to  all  with  whom  he  comes 
in  contact.  If  he  regret  a  war  he  has  made 
against  one  individual,  let  him  place  the  entire 
world  on  his  pension  list.  If  a  man  make  a  cer- 
tain mistake  once,  the  only  way  he  can  properly 
express  his  recognition  of  it  is  not  to  make  a 
similar  mistake  later.  Josh  Billings  once  said: 
"A  man  who  is  bitten  twice  by  the  same  dog  is 
better  adapted  to  that  business  than  any  other." 

There  are  many  people  in  this  world  who  want 
to  live  life  over  because  they  take  such  pride  in 
their  past.  They  resemble  the  beggars  in  the 
street  who  tell  you  they  "  have  seen  better  days." 
It  is  not  what  man  was  that  shows  character;  it 
is  what  he  progressively  is.  Trying  to  obtain  a 
present  record  on  a  dead  past  is  like  some  pres- 
ent-day mediocrity  that  tries  to  live  on  its  ances- 
try. We  look  for  the  fruit  in  the  branches  of  the 
family  tree,  not  in  the  roots.  Showing  how  a 
family  degenerated  from  a  noble  ancestor  of  gen- 
erations ago  to  its  present  representative  is  not  a 
boast; — it  is  an  unnecessary  confession.  Let  man 
think  less  of  his  own  ancestors  and  more  of  those 


Living  Life  Over  Again  45 

he  is  preparing  for  his  posterity;  less  of  his  past 
virtue,  and  more  of  his  future. 

When  man  pleads  for  a  chance  to  live  life  over,^ 
there  is  always  an  implied  plea  of  inexperience, 
of  a  lack  of  knowledge.  This  is  unworthy,  even 
of  a  coward.  We  know  the  laws  of  health,  yet 
we  ignore  them  or  defy  them  every  day.  We 
know  what  is  the  proper  food  for  us,  individ- 
ually, to  eat,  yet  we  gratify  our  appetites  and 
trust  to  our  cleverness  to  square  the  account  with 
Nature  somehow.  We  know  that  success  is  a 
matter  of  simple,  clearly  defined  laws,  of  the  de- 
velopment of  mental  essentials,  of  tireless  energy 
and  concentration,  of  constant  payment  of  price, 
— we  know  all  this,  and  yet  we  do  not  live  up  to 
our  knowledge.  We  constantly  eclipse  our- 
selves by  ourselves,  and  then  we  blame  Fate. 

Parents  often  counsel  their  children  against 
certain  things,  and  do  them  themselves,  in  the 
foolish  hope  that  the  children  will  believe  their 
ears  in  preference  to  their  eyes.  Years  of  care- 
ful teaching  of  a  child  to  be  honest  and  truthful 
may  be  nullified  in  an  instant  by  a  parent's  lying 
to  a  conductor  about  a  child's  age  to  save  a  nickel. 
That  may  be  a  very  expensive  street-car  ride  for 
the  child,— and  for  the  parent.  It  may  be  part 
of  the  spirit  of  the  age  to  believe  that  it  is  no  sin 
to  cheat  a  corporation  or  a  trust,  but  it  is  unwise 
to  give  the  child  so  striking  an  example  at  an 
age  when  it  cannot  detect  the  sophistry. 

Man's  only  plea  for  a  chance  to  live  life  again 
is  that  he  has  gained  in  wisdom  and  experience. 


Living  Life  Over  Again 

if  fce  be  really  in  earnest,  then  he  can  live  life 
over,  he  can  live  life  anew,  he  can  live  the  new  life 
that  comes  to  him  day  by  day.  Let  him  leave  to 
the  past,  to  the  aggregated  thousands  of  yester- 
days, all  their  mistakes,  sin,  sorrow,  misery  and 
folly,  and  start  afresh.  Let  him  close  the  books 
of  his  old  life,  let  him  strike  a  balance,  and  start 
anew,  crediting  himself  with  all  the  wisdom  he 
has  gained  from  his  past  failure  and  weakness, 
and  charging  himself  with  the  new  duties  and 
responsibilities  that  come  from  the  possession  of 
iis  new  capital  of  wisdom.  Let  him  criticise 

khers  less  and  himself  more, — and  start  out 
bravely  in  this  new  life  he  is  to  live. 

What  the  world  needs  is  more  day-to-day  liv- 
ing; starting  in  the  morning  with  freshT  cleat 
ideals  for  that  day,  and  seeking  to  live  that  day, 
and  each  successive  hour  and  moment  of  that  day, 
as  if  it  were  all  time  and  all  eternity.  This  ha& 
in  it  no  element  of  disregard  for  the  future,  for 
each  day  is  set  in  harmony  with  that  future.  It 
is  like  the  sea-captain  heading  his  vessel  toward 
his  port  of  destination,  and  day  by  day  keeping 
her  steaming  toward  it.  This  view  of  living 
kills  morbid  regret  of  the  past,  and  morbid  worry 
about  the  future.  Most  people  want  large,  guar- 
anteed slices  of  life;  they  would  not  be  satisfied 
with  manna  fresh  every  day,  as  was  given  to  the 
children  of  Israel;  they  want  grain  elevators 
filled  with  daily  bread. 

Life  is  worth  living  if  it  be  lived  in  a  way  that 
is  worth  living.  Man  does  not  own  his  life,— to 


Living  Life  Over  Again  47 

do  with  as  he  will.  He  has  merely  a  life-interest 
in  it.  He  must  finally  surrender  it, — with  an  ac- 
counting. At  each  New  Year  tide  it  is  common 
to  make  new  resolutions,  but  in  the  true  life  of 
the  individual  each  day  is  the  beginning  of  a 
New  Year  if  he  will  only  make  it  so.  A  mere 
date  on  the  calendar  of  eternity  is  no  more  a 
divider  of  time  than  a  particular  grain  of  sand 
divides  the  desert. 

Let  us  not  make  heroic  resolutions  so  far  be- 
yond our  strength  that  the  resolution  becomes  a 
dead  memory  within  a  week;  but  let  us  promise 
ourselves  that  each  day  will  be  the  new  begin- 
ning of  a  newer,  better  and  truer  life  for  our- 
selves, for  those  around  us,  and  for  the  world. 


VIII 
Syndicating  Our  Sorrows 

(HE  most  selfish  manJnjthe  world  is  the 


sorrows- He  does  not  leave  a  single 

misery  of  his  untold  to  you,  or  unsuf- 
fered  by  you, — he  gives  you  all  of  them.  The 
world  becomes  to  him  a  syndicate  formed  to  take 
stock  in  his  private  cares,  worries  and  trials.  His 
mistake  is  in  forming  a  syndicate;  he  should 
organize  a  trust  and  control  it  all  himself,  then 
he  could  keep  every  one  from  getting  any  of  hi.\ 
misery. 

Life  is  a  great,  serious  problem  for  the  indi- 
vidual. All  our  greatest  Joys  and  our  deepest 
sorrows  come  to  us, -(-alone.  We  must  go  into 
our  Gethsemane,— atofte.  We  must  battle  against 
the  mighty  weakness  within  us, — alone.  We 
must  live  our  own  life, — alone.  We  must  die,— 
alone.  We  must  accept  the  full  responsibility  of 
our  life, — alone.  If  each  one  of  us  has  this 
mighty  problem  of  life  to  solve  for  himself,  if 
each  of  us  has  his  own  cares,  responsibilities, 
failures,  doubts,  _fe.ars,  bereavements,  we  surely 
are  playing  a  c^waro)s  part  when  we  syndicate 
our  sorrows  to  outeii. 

48 


Syndicating  Our  Sorrow  49 

We  should  seek  to  make  life  brighter  for  oth- 
ers; we  should  seek  to  hearten  them  in  their 
trials  by  the  example  of  our  courage  in  bearing 
our  sorrows.  We  should  seek  to  forget  our  fail- 
ures, and  remember  only  the  new  wisdom  they 
gave  us;  we  should  live  down  our  griefs  by 
counting  the  joys  and  privileges  still  left  to  us; 
put  behind  us  our  worries  and  regrets,  and  face 
each  new  day  of  life  as  bravely  as  we  can.  But 
we  have  no  right  to  retail  our  sorrow  and  un- 
happiness  through  the  community. 

Autobiography  constitutes  a  large  part  of  the 
conversation  of  some  people.  It  is  not  really 
conversation, — it  is  an  uninterrupted  monologue. 
These  people  study  their  individual  lives  with  a 
microscope,  and  then  they  throw  an  enlarged 
view  of  their  miseries  on  a  screen  and  lecture  on 
them,  as  a  stereopticon  man  discourses  on  the 
microbes  in  a  drop  of  water.  They  tell  you  that 
"they  did  not  sleep  a  wink  all  night;  they  heard 
the  clock  strike  every  quarter  of  an  hour."  Now, 
there  is  no  real  cause  for  thus  boasting  of  insom- 
nia. It  requires  no  peculiar  talent, — even  though 
it  does  come  only  to  wide-awake  people. 

If  you  ask  such  a  man  how  he  is  feeling,  he 
will  trace  the  whole  genealogy  of  his  present 
condition  down  from  the  time  he  had  the  grippe 
four  years  ago.  You  hoped  for  a  word;  he  gives 
you  a  treatise.  You  asked  for  a  sentence;  he  de- 
livers an  encyclopedia.  His  motto  is:  "Every 
man  his  ow»i  Bosw*U."  He  is  syndicating  his 
Sorrows. 


jo  Syndicating  Our  Sorrow 


woman  who  makes  her  trials  with  her 
-children,    her  troubles  with  her   servants,   her 

/  difficulties  with  her  family,  the  subjects  of  con- 

versation with  her  callers  is  syndicating  her  sor- 

rows.   If  she  has  a  dear  little  innocent  child  who 

\  recites  "Curfew  Shall  Not  Ring  To-night,"  is  it 

\not  wiser  for  the  mother  to  bear  it  calmly  and 
tiiscreetly  and  in  silence,  than  to  syndicate  this 
sWrow  ? 

'  The  business  man  who  lets  his  dyspepsia  get 
into  his  disposition,  and  who  makes  every  one 
round  him  suffer  because  he  himself  is  ill,  is  syndi- 
cating ill-health.  We  have  no  right  to  make 
others  the  victims  of  our  moods.  If  illness  makes 
us  cross  and  irritable,  makes  us  unjust  to  faithful 
workers  who  cannot  protest,  let  us  quarantine 
ourselves  so  that  we  do  not  spread  the  contagion, 
Let  us  force  ourselves  to  speak  slowly,  to  keep 
anger  away  from  the  eyes,  to  prevent  temper 
showing  in  the  voice.  If  we  feel  that  we  must 
have  dyspepsia,  let  us  keep  it  out  of  our  head, 
let  us  keep  it  from  getting  north  of  the  neck. 

Most  people  sympathize  too  muchjwith  them* 
selves.  They  take  them$elves~~as  a  single  sen- 
tence isolated  from  the  great  text  of  life.  They 
study  themselves  too  much  as  separated  from  the 
rest  of  humanity,  instead  of  being  vitally  con- 
nected with  their  fellow-men.  There  are  some 
people  who  surrender  to  sorrow  as  others  give 
way  to  dissipation.  There  is  a  vain  pride  of 
sorrow  as  well  as  of  beauty.  Most  individuals 
have  a  strange  glow  of  vanity  in  looking  back 


Syndicating  Our  Sorrow  51 

upon  their  past  and  feeling  that  few  others  in 
life  have  suffered  such  trials,  hardships  and  dis- 
appointments as  have  come  to  them. 

When  Death  comes  into  the  little  circle  of  loved 
ones  who  make  up  our  world,  all  life  becomes 
dark  to  us.  We  seem  to  have  no  reason  for  ex- 
isting, no  object,  no  incentive,  no  hope.  The 
love  that  made  struggle  and  effort  bearable  for 
us, — is  gone.  We  stare,  dry-eyed,  into  the  fu- 
ture, and  see  no  future;  we  want  none.  Life 
has  become  to  us  a  past, — with  no  future.  It  is 
but  a  memory,  without  a  hope.  . 

Then  in  the  divine  mystery  of  Nature's  proc- 
esses, under  the  tender,  soothing  touch  of  Time, 
as  days  melt  into  weeks,  we  begin  to  open  our 
eyes  gently  to  the  world  around  us,  and  the 
noise  and  tumult  of  life  jars  less  and  less  upon 
us.  We  have  become  emotionally  convalescent. 
As  the  days  go  on,  in  our  deep  love,  in  the  full- 
ness of  our  loyalty,  we  protest  often,  with  tears 
in  our  eyes,  against  our  gradual  return  to  the 
spirit  and  atmosphere  of  the  days  of  the  past. 
We  feel  in  a  subtle  way  a  new  pain,  as  if  we 
were  disloyal  to  the  dear  one,  as  if  we  were 
faithless  to  our  love.  Nature  sweetly  turns  aside 
our  protesting  hands,  and  says  to  us,  "There  is 
no  disloyalty  in  permitting  the  wounds  to  lessen 
their  pain,  to  heal  gradually,  if  Time  foreordain 
that  they  can  heal."  There  are  some  natures,  all- 
absorbed  in  a  mighty  love,  wherein  no  healing  is 
possible, — but  these  are  rare  souls  in  life. 

Bitter  though  our  anguish  be,   we  have  ra 


52  Syndicating  Our  Sorrow 

/right  to  syndicate  our  sorrow.    We  have  no 

/right  to  cast  a  gloom  over  happy  natures  by  our 

/  heavy  weight  of  crape,  by  serving  the  term  pre- 

/   scribed  by  Society    for  wearing  the  livery  of 

mourning, — as  if  real  grief  thought  of  a  uniform. 

\    We  have  no  right  to  syndicate  our  grief  by  using 

\  note-paper  with  a  heavy  black  border  as  wide  as 

\  a  hatband,  thus  parading  our  personal  sorrow  to 

\  others  in  their  happiest  moments. 

If  life  has  not  gone  well  with  us,  if  fortune  has 
left  us  disconsolate,  if  love  has  grown  cold,  and 
we  sit  alone  by  the  embers;  if  life  has  become  to 
us  a  valley  of  desolation,  through  which  weary 
limbs  must  drag  an  unwilling  body  till  the  end 
shall  come, — let  us  not  radiate  such  an  atmos- 
phere to  those  round  us;  let  us  not  take  strangers 
through  the  catacombs  of  our  life,  and  show  the 
bones  of  our  dead  past;  let  us  not  pass  our  cup 
of  sorrow  to  others,  but,  if  we  must  drink  it,  let 
us  take  it  as  Socrates  did  his  poison  hemlock, — 
grandly,  heroically  and  uncomplainingly. 

If  your  life  has  led  you  to  doubt  the  existence 
of  honor  in  man  and  virtue  in  woman ;  if  you 
feel  that  religion  is  a  pretense,  that  spirituality  is 
a  sham,  that  life  is  a  failure,  and  death  the  en- 
trance to  nothingness;  if  you  have  absorbed  all 
the  poison  philosophy  of  the  world's  pessimists, 
and  committed  the  folly  of  believing  it, — don't 
syndicate  it. 

If  your  fellow-man  be  clinging  to  one  frail  spar, 
the  last  remnant  of  a  noble,  shipwrecked  faith  in 
God  and  humanity,  let  him  keep  it.  Do  not 


Syndicating  Our  Sorrow  53 

loosen  his  fingers  from  his  hope,  and  tell  him  it 
is  a  delusion.  How  do  you  know  ?  Who  told 
you  it  was  so  ? 

If  these  high-tide  moments  of  life  sweep  your 
faith  in  Omnipotence  into  nothingness,  if  the 
friend  in  whom  you  have  put  all  faith  in  hu- 
manity and  humanity's  God  betray  you,  do  not 
eagerly  accept  the  teachings  of  those  modern 
freethinkers  who  syndicate  their  infidelity  at  so 
much  per  reserved  seat.  Seek  to  recover  your 
lost  faith  by  listening  to  the  million  voices  that 
speak  of  infinite  wisdom,  infinite  love,  that  mani- 
fest themselves  in  nature  and  humanity,  and  then 
build  up  as  rapidly  as  you  can  a  new  faith,  a  faith 
in  something  higher,  better  and  truer  than  you 
have  known  before. 

You  may  have  one  in  the  world  to  whom  you 
may  dare  show  with  the  fullness  of  absolute 
confidence  and  perfect  faith  any  thought,  any 
hope,  any  sorrow, — but  you  dare  not  trust  them 
to  the  world.  Do  not  show  the  world  through 
your  Bluebeard  chamber;  keep  your  trials  and 
sorrows  as  close  to  you  as  you  can  till  you  have 
mastered  them.  Don't  weaken  others  by  thus- 
syndicating  your  miseries. 


IX 

The  Revelations  of  Reserve  Power 

EEJYJndividna.LisJLjnaar\^gl^of  unknown 
and  unrealized  possibilities.  Nine- 
tenths  of  an  iceberg  is  always  below 
water.  Nine-tenths  of  the  possibilities 
of  good  and  evil  of  the  individual  is  ever  hidden 
from  his  sight. 

Burns'  prayer, — that  we  might  "see  oursels 
as  ithers  see  us," — was  weak.  The  answer 
could  minister  only  to  man's  vanity, — it  would 
show  him  only  what  others  think  him  to  be,  not 
what  he  is.  We  should  pray  to  see  ourselves  as 
we  are.  But  no  man  could  face  the  radiant  reve- 
lation of  the  latent  powers  and  forces  within 
him,  underlying  the  weak,  narrow  life  he  is  liv- 
ing. He  would  fall  blinded  and  prostrate  as  did 
Moses  before  the  burning  bush.  Man  is  not  a 
mechanical  music-box  wound  up  by  the  Creator 
and  set  to  play  a  fixed  number  of  prescribed 
tunes.  He  is  a  human  harp,  with  infinite  possi- 
bilities of  unawakened  music. 

The  untold  revelations  of  Nature  are  in  her  Re- 
serve Power.    Reserve  Power  is  Nature's  method 
of  meetiogemefgencies. — Nature  7s"  wise  and 
economic/Nature  saves  energy  and  effort,  and 
64 


The  Revelations  of  Reserve  Power    55 

gives  only  what  Is  absolutely  necessary  for  life 
and  development  under  any  given  condition,  and 
when  new  needs  arise  Nature  always  meets  them 
by  her  Reserve  Power. 

In  animal  life  Nature  reveals  this  in  a  million 
phases.  Animals  placed  in  the  darkness  of  the 
Mammoth  Cave  gradually  have  the  sense  of  sight 
weakened  and  the  senses  of  smell,  touch  and 
bearing  intensified.  Nature  watches  over  all 
animals,  making  their  color  harmonize  with  the 
general  tone  of  their  surroundings  to  protect 
them  from  their  enemies.  Those  arctic  animals 
which  in  the  summer  inhabit  regions  free  from 
snow,  turn  white  when  winter  comes.  In  the 
desert,  the  lion,  the  camel  and  all  the  desert  ante- 
lopes have  more  or  less  the  color  of  the  sand  and 
rocks  among  which  they  live.  In  tropical  forests 
parrots  are  usually  green ;  turacous,  barbets  and 
bee-eaters  have  a  preponderance  of  green  in  their 
plumage.  The  colors  change  as  the  habits  of  the 
animals  change  from  generation  to  generation. 
Nature,  by  her  Reserve  Power,  always  meets  the 
new  needs  of  animals  with  new  strength, — new 
harmony  with  new  conditions. 

About  forty-five  years  ago  three  pairs  of  enter- 
prising rabbits  were  introduced  into  Australia. 
To-day,  the  increase  of  these  six  immigrants  may 
be  counted  by  millions.  They  became  a  pest  to 
the  country.  Fortunes  have  been  spent  to  exter- 
minate them.  Wire  fences  many  feet  high  and 
thousands  of  miles  long  have  been  built  to  keep 
out  the  invaders.  The  rabbits  had  to  fight  awful 


56   The  Revelations  of  Reserve  Powef 

odds  to  live,  but  they  have  now  outwitted  man. 
They  have  developed  a  new  nail, — a  long  nail  by 
which  they  can  retain  their  hold  on  the  fence 
while  climbing.  With  this  same  nail  they  can 
burrow  six  or  eight  inches  under  the  netting,  and 
thus  enter  the  fields  that  mean  food  and  life  to 
them.  They  are  now  laughing  at  man.  Reserve 
Power  has  vitalized  for  these  rabbits  latent  possi- 
bilities because  they  did  not  tamely  accept  their 
condition,  but  in  their  struggle  to  live  learned 
how  to  live. 

In  plant  life,  Nature  is  constantly  revealing  Re- 
serve Power.  The  possibilities  of  almost  infinite 
color  are  present  in  every  green  plant,  even  in 
roots  and  stems.  Proper  conditions  only  are 
needed  to  reveal  them.  By  obeying  Nature's 
laws  man  could  make  leaves  as  beautifully  col- 
ored as  flowers.  The  wild  rose  has  only  a  single 
corolla;  but,  when  cultivated  in  rich  soil,  the 
numerous  yellow  stamens  change  into  the  bril- 
liant red  leaves  of  the  full-grown  cabbage-rose. 
This  is  but  one  of  Nature's  miracles  of  Reserve 
Power.  Once  the  banana  was  a  tropical  lily;  the 
peach  was  at  one  time  a  bitter  almond.  To  tell 
the  full  story  of  Reserve  Power  in  Nature  would 
mean  to  write  the  history  of  the  universe,  in  a 
thousand  volumes. 

Nature  is  a  great  believer  in  "double  engines." 
Man  is  equipped  with  nearly  every  organ  in 
duplicate—- eyes,  ears,  lungs,  arms  and  legs,  so 
that  if  one  be  weakened,  its  mate,  through  Re- 
serve Power,  is  stimulated  to  do  enough  for 


The  Revelations  of  Reserve  Power   57 

both.  Even  where  the  organ  itself  is  not  dupli- 
cated, as  in  the  nose,  there  is  a  division  of  parts 
so  there  is  constant  reserve.  Nature,  for  still 
further  protection,  has  for  every  part  of  the  body 
an  understudy  in  training,  to  be  ready  in  a  crisis, 
— as  the  sense  of  touch  for  the  blind. 

Birds  when  frightened  ruffle  their  feathers;  a 
dog  that  has  been  in  the  water  shakes  its  coat  so 
that  each  hair  stands  out  of  itself;  the  startled 
hedgehog  projects  every  quill.  These  actions 
are  produced  by  "skin  muscles"  that  are  rudi- 
mentary in  man,  and  over  which  in  ordinary 
conditions  he  has  no  control.  But  in  a  moment 
of  terrible  fear  Reserve  Power  quickens  their  ac- 
tion in  a  second,  and  the  hair  on  his  head 
"stands  on  end"  in  the  intensity  of  his  fright. 

Nature,  that  thus  watches  so  tenderly  over  the 
physical  needs  of  man,  is  equally  provident  in 
storing  for  him  a  mental  and  a  moral  Reserve 
Power.  Man  may  fail  in  a  dozen  different  lines 
of  activity  and  then  succeed  brilliantly  in  a  phase 
wherein  he  was  unconscious  of  any  ability.  We 
must  never  rest  content  with  what  we  are,  and 
say:  "There  is  no  use  for  me  to  try.  I  can 
never  be  great.  I  am  not  even  clever  now."  But 
the  law  of  Reserve  Power  stands  by  us  as  a  fairy 
godmother  and  says:  "There  is  one  charm  by 
which  you  can  transmute  the  dull  dross  of  your 
present  condition  into  the  pure  gold  of  strength 
and  power, — that  charm  is  ever  doing  your  best, 
ever  daring  more,  and  the  full  measure  of  your 
final  attainment  can  never  be  told  in  advance. 


58    The  Revelations  of  Reserve  Power 

Rely  upon  me  to  help  you  with  new  revelations 
of  strength  in  new  emergencies.  Never  be  cast 
down  because  your  power  seems  so  trifling,  your 
progress  so  slow.  The  world's  greatest  and  best 
men  were  failures  in  some  line,  failures  many 
times  before  failure  was  crowned  with  success." 

There  is  in  the  mythology  of  the  Norsemen  a 
belief  that  the  strength  of  an  enemy  we  kill  en- 
ters into  us.  This  is  true  in  character.  As  we 
conquer  a  passion,  a  thought,  a  feeling,  a  desire; 
as  we  rise  superior  to  some  impulse,  the  strength 
of  that  victory,  trifling  though  it  may  be,  is 
stored  by  Nature  as  a  Reserve  Power  to  come  to 
\us  in  the  hour  of  our  need. 

Were  we  to  place  before  almost  any  Individual 
the  full  chart  of  his  future, — his  trials,  sorrows, 
failures,  afflictions,  loss,  sickness  and  loneliness, 
— and  ask  him  if  he  could  bear  it,  he  would  say: 
"No!  I  could  not  bear  all  that  and  live."  But 
he  can  and  he  does.  The  hopes  upon  the  realiza- 
tion of  which  he  has  staked  all  his  future  turn  to 
air  as  he  nears  them;  friends  whom  he  has 
trusted  betray  him;  the  world  grows  cold  to 
him;  the  child  whose  smile  is  the  light  of  his  life 
dishonors  his  name;  death  takes  from  him  the 
wife  of  his  heart.  Reserve  Power  has  been 
watching  over  him  and  ever  giving  him  new 
strength, — even  while  he  sleeps. 

If  we  be  conscious  of  any  weakness,  and  de- 
sire to  conquer  it,  we  can  force  ourselves  into 
positions  where  we  must  act  in  a  way  to 
strengthen  ourselves  through  that  weakness,  cut 


The  Revelations  of  Reserve  Power   59 

off  our  retreat,  burn  our  bridges  behind  us,  and 
fight  like  Spartans  till  the  victory  be  ours. 

Reserve  Power  is  like  the  manna  given  to  the 
children  of  Israel  in  the  wilderness, — only  enough 
was  given  them  to  keep  them  for  one  day.  Each 
successive  day  had  its  new  supply  of  strength. 
There  is  in  the  leaning  tower  of  Pisa  a  spiral 
stairway  so  steep  in  its  ascent  that  only  one  step 
at  a  time  is  revealed  to  us.  But  as  each  step  is 
taken  the  next  is  made  visible,  and  thus,  step  by 
step,  to  the  very  highest.  So  in  the  Divine  econ- 
omy of  the  universe,  Reserve  Power  is  a  gradual 
and  constant  revelation  of  strength  within  us  to 
meet  each  new  need.  And  no  matter  what  be 
our  line  of  life,  what  our  need,  we  should  feel 
that  we  have  within  us  infinite,  untried  strength 
and  possibility,  and  that,  if  we  believe  and  do 
our  best,  the  Angel  of  Reserve  Power  will  walk 
by  our  side,  and  will  even  divide  the  waters  of 
the  Red  Sea  of  our  sorrows  and  trials  so  we  may 
walk  through  in  safety. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN     INITIAL     FINE     OF     25     CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


OCT  18 

OCT 


1<K!2REC 


FfB   22,334 


27  1934 


AUG2     1955  LU 


3Jan'57CB 
•D  LD 


DEC  7    1956 


REC'D  LD 

MAR    4  1961 


LD  21-50m-8.-32 


YA  02975 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


m^mm 


•       >  •    •     - 

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